What I’m writing about here applies to classical music but might have parallels in other music too. I’ve brought this topiic up in different ways before.
Years ago when I was blissfully ensconced in mif-fi, I could easily compare different performances of the same classical work with the confidence that the sound quality would be essentially the same. There would be no issues of soundstaging, detail, et al that would make it hard for me to compare. It was easy to judge a performance on its own merits without complicating factors. Now, it’s almost impossible to assess a performance without placing SQ into the mix. A mediocre recording might be extremely attractive due the sound alone, Conversely, a very good performance might be shunted aside as “unlistenable.”
I totally agree; bad recordings can certainly diminish the pleasure of good performances. On the other hand, good recordings don't improve bad performance, they just make the bad performance more obvious. But oh my, when you couple excellent performance with a high quality recording, played on a nice system, you have it all. Maybe the payoff is worth the trouble.
Some "music lovers" will be critical of this view. Some seem to be able to appreciate the underlying music, regardless of the quality of the reproduction.
Art Dudley included the subject of the ability of superior hi-fi components to afford the listener deeper access into the musical performances contained in recordings, irrespective of the "sound" of the recordings and/or component(s). He held that it was a matter of the ability of the component/system to "play the music", an ability separate from the quality of the "sound" of same.
Listening to a hi-fi tends to raise our expectations. I don’t expect a car CD player to make music sound "good", so when it doesn’t I’m not disappointed.
You bring up a good question. For me the answer lies in what kind of system have you built and are you listening to the system or the performance. For much of my history I was driven by my ability to analyze and hear more detail and nuance… in the sounds, images, soundstage, etc. The result was that it emphasized details and the venue and lost the gestalt and musicality which drew me in to the performance.
So, as I pointed out in other posts, with season ticket to the symphony for a decade I compared my system to the real thing and changed my system over time to be natural and musical. The music draws me in now instead of sticking out in my face. Different performances stand out, not by how they were recorded, but how they were performed. Much of today equipment is designed around detail and slam, making a sonic spectacular to wow the listener but failing to reproduce the musical experience.
To me a truly high end (audiophile) system reproduces the musical experience and sucks you in to the performance. It doesn’t make background instruments into solo performances and tell you all about the venue and mastering unless there was something very wrong with them. There are a number of companies working to produce equipment to do this like Sonus Faber, Conrad Johnson, Audio Research and VAC.
Yes, @ghdprentice , but I have a little bit of an idea of what gear your system is put together with, and I can only think that it must reproduce quite a bit of sonic detail. How do you feel about listening to subpar source material (be it CDs or LPs) via your system?
currently listening to my favorite jazz on iPod Classic attached to just returned to me Onkyo ipod dock/cd receiver, and quite enjoying it...kind of opposite of your thread about poorly recorded music on good system, this is very well recorded music on extremely limited playback system...
You are correct, my systems do produce great detail, however they do so proportionally. By that, I mean if you listen for them the details are there, just not in your face. In the same way that if you listen in a quiet symphony hall you can hear the echo all around from venue, but you must direct your attention to it in order to hear it. Btw, my systems are shown under my UserID in virtual systems.
So, unless a CD or LP is actively bad, my system does not draw attention to it and it sounds pretty good. Very few albums sound really bad… having said that, there are some real stinkers out there… early Yardbirds (I think) and some Russian symphony orchestra recording. I have more than once bought a great Shostakovich by the USSR Symphony Orchestra and choir with great anticipation, only to hear the most horrible tinny recording. oh well.
RV, FWIW, IME, I'd bet that when you were listening to music over a mid fi system you were not focused on its recorded sound so much as you were exploring new music or the alternative performances of music of which you were already aware. From that experience you developed preferences which you carried forward into your development of a high fi system. Music, or performances of such, dicated how you wanted to hear it over your hifi. By way of example I fell in love with Kleiber's version of Beethoven's 5th. Even now, I don't listen to other versions by conductors whose version doesn't draw me in regardless of the competence of the recording.
Not so much with Richter's version of Mussorgsky's Pictures (1957 live at Sofia). To me there has never been a better performance more ineptly recorded as this. I do not take it off the shelf but I do find that I there are quite a few newer performances, better recorded, which I can easily enjoy.
I guess the importance of the sound quality today is greatly influenced by the importance of the music (to me). Much of the music is well heard in my mind so what I hear is not so important over my hifi(?) system so long as the sound is not offense to my hifi ears. This morning I'm listening to RR's recording of Copland's Fanfare, Appalachian Spring, and 3rd Symphony. Hog heaven, even though I'm sure there are better (technically speaking) performance available. Over my system the sound is as good as it gets (or needs to be). Guilty pleasure.
Veridian, Most of what you hear in a hall is, IME, determined by where you sit and what you are listening to. The closer you sit to a center seat, just in front of the orchestra pit, the more you you will hear instrument specificity, so long as it's not overwhelmed by by the volume. For example, listen to some Mahler in, say, rows 4,5,6 or 7. In his quiet sections you can easily hear the sound stage so long as your ears can still hear anything after listening to the blaring of the brass and impact of the booming drums. This is a sound you will never bring home on a recording, but if you could you could never reproduce it!
Viridian, Sorry about that moniker thing. I should be more careful.
I don’t pretend to know what ’you’ hear, What I should have used in its place was the word ’one'. I should have been more careful with the words selection but I thought that the inclusion of the term IME would make it clear that what I thought you heard, or in this case did not hear, was based on what I hear, not on what you actually experienced. How would I really know, I’m neither an audiologist, a psychologist or a mystic.
BTW, FWIW, It is not of great concern to me whether you, or anyone for that matter, is interested in my contributions. But I post just in case someone might .
I can appreciate that, thank you. You say it is an opinion, as you said "IME" but also use the word "you" so you clearly said that it is your opinion that I can hear things that I said up the page that I cannot. At any rate, I appreciate those with finer hearing than myself, or perhaps better access to prime seats in the concert hall than I have. I would never presume to tell anyone what they hear, as my post above made clear.
But oh my, when you couple excellent performance with a high quality recording, played on a nice system, you have it all. Maybe the payoff is worth the trouble.
Some "music lovers" will be critical of this view. Some seem to be able to appreciate the underlying music, regardless of the quality of the reproduction.
I identify as a music-lover. I would never downplay the potential for enjoyment when well-recorded music is played on a nice system. That would be absurd! What I do not identify with is an inability to be engaged by music unless it’s presented in high-end sound. Of course, if the sound is so poor as to be garbled, that’s another story.
What I’ve noticed is, the better the sound, the more my attention is drawn to sonics/system. I don’t find I’m more engaged by the music. My capacity for enjoying music began way before I heard better-than-mid-fi sound and I still utilize that same capacity to this day, whether I'm listening to the car radio, at home on my modest system or to a friend's high-end system.
@ghdprentice , you and I are listening in way different ball parks; for example, I know that your speakers cost more than my entire system would MSRP for. And I have seen pictures of your room.
With that out of the way, even though it is not the minute detail and etc that you listen for when you play a LP or a CD, if your system was not capable of reproducing that and much more (such as the reproduction of sound stage and imaging and the air surrounding a solo) would you miss all of that and would it still suck you into the performance the way that I am sure it currently does?
Yes, very nice system. I had to admit defeat to hi-end in 2006. Even though I still work at it, you see my system page has not changed since 2006. That’s is because I have not found any major improvement worth mentioning.
- Good and bad recordings sound better on hifi rigs than midfi rigs. One will need some peq, etc to salvage the poor recordings just a bit. These type of threads typically originate from guys who’ve deprived themselves of all necessary tools (while they pursued the "purity") and limited themselves to a tiny audiophile playlist.
- if one’s buying recordings of untalented, boneheaded artists just because the recording is good....such lousy gearheads have always been a waste of time (lousy dudes)..
If I understand your comment. Yes, all that detail must be there, we agree on that. My comment centers around proportionality between different sounds. I have heard many systems where, say the cymbles stuck out like a solo instrument, when in fact it was intended to be just one component… or a key for celebration is hearing someone move their foot on the floor.
Seating is importantly at a symphony. My seats are 7th row center and the microphones for recording are over my head.
If you’re getting enjoyment out of your system, what does it matter what you spent on it? People here enjoy systems that literally were assembled on a shoestring budget to systems well into S-Class territory(pricing) and beyond. On a certain level, the enjoyment of music is the same.
Well this isn't a site about cheap stereo equipment, It's a site about Expensive Audio Equipment.....if you don't know that by just reading the forum, For get about it.
Well this isn't a site about cheap stereo equipment, It's a site about Expensive Audio Equipment.....if you don't know that by just reading the forum, For get about it.
Amazing to see someone with so many posts say this about the main gist of this forum.
Well this isn't a site about cheap stereo equipment, It's a site about Expensive Audio Equipment.....if you don't know that by just reading the forum, For get about it.
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